Surgery Museum Makes You Grateful for Any Modern Healthcare Whatsoever

Granddads would have you believe things were better in the good ol’ days, but a short stroll through the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago makes liars of them all.

From graphic paintings of childbirth to a vast collection of often-ghastly tools of the trade, the Surgical Museum is a morbidly fascinating journey into the blood-spattered beginnings of modern medicine. After a look at these hair-raising exhibits, you might remark that while the United States may be in serious need of health care reform, at least we have anesthetics and the germ theory of disease.

Read on for a photo tour of the museum that will make you grateful you weren’t sick back when surgeons wielded tools that would make Sweeney Todd blush.

Above: A skull found in Paracus, Peru, shows evidence of trepanation, the removal of pieces of the skull for “therapeutic” purposes. The evidence indicates the skull’s unfortunate owner had undergone (and survived) the primitive surgery.

Pre-Columbian societies from the Andes to Mexico employed the technique, which was also practiced in Europe for thousands of years: Hippocrates himself drafted written instructions for the procedure.

Even today, a small group on the pseudo-scientific fringe advocate and occasionally administer trepanation, which has resulted in an appearance on Howard Stern, a story on ABC’s 20/20 — and felony charges. The group’s website, complete with New Age Muzak worthy of a softcore porn movie, may be even creepier than this museum.

The IMSS is housed in a mansion on the shores of Lake Michigan, next door to the headquarters of the International College of Surgeons, whose members opened the museum in 1954. The building, designed by noted architect Howard Van Doren Shaw, was inspired by Marie Antoinette’s personal clubhouse at Versailles.

Guillotines, however, are not among the collection’s many cutting tools. Constructed in 1917 by heirs to the Diamond Match fortune, the Countiss Mansion, named for its former owners, made the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. Its hallways are now filled with large paintings and murals depicting surgical sciences through the years.

The museum opened Sept. 9, 1954, and one of the first exhibits to open was the “Hall of Immortals,” 12 looming statues that depict the great contributors to the surgical sciences.

Sir Henry Gauvain invented the iron lung for the treatment of coal gas poisoning, but it wasn’t widely used until the massive outbreak of polio in the 1940s and 50s. The iron lung helped patients draw breath, when paralysis from the disease made it difficult or impossible for them to breathe on their own.

At one point during the polio epidemic, hospital wards were lined with patients locked in iron lungs. Nearly 60,000 people were infected with the disease in Illinois alone, and thousands died. It wasn’t until the late 1950s that the vaccines invented by Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin put an end to the most terrifying health scare of postwar America.

This surgical set (partial) belonged to a Dr. Leonardo (1796-1860), personal physician to Ferdinand II of Bourbon, King of the Two Sicilies. The tools included a trepanning instrument (the procedure was still used into the 19th century) and tools for amputating limbs, including a chill-inducing bone saw (top). The pliers were probably used to pull bullets from flesh.

A set of 47 ophthalmic surgery instruments from the F. Alfred Reichardt Co. (USA, 1917). The handles of the delicate tools on the right are made from ivory. The syringe … well, you probably felt more than a pinch when the needle went into your eyeball.

From A.M Phelps comes the “lightest, neatest and most durable jacket available on the 1899 market.” Designed to correct scoliosis, or terrify children into standing up straight, the aluminum vest could be worn underneath the clothing (or so the manufacturer claimed). The holes provided ventilation and must have left a pretty interesting pattern on the skin.

Soldiers who busted a leg during the Civil War would likely have used a pair of these splints, manufactured in Vermont by A.M Day: clearly a more appealing option than the bone saw.

These kidney stones were found in Egyptian mummies from the 28th Dynasty — some stones weighing nearly an ounce. Surgical techniques for removing them have been around for thousands of years, and are even mentioned in the original Hippocratic oath, which required ancient physicians to promise not to “cut for the stone.” Instead, presaging the modern approach, they were expected to defer to practitioners who specialized in the procedure.

The Lambert X-ray tube stand, (1897-1905, manufactured by Levy X-Ray Equipment) allowed an operator to set the X-ray tubes in one of three positions, and the lead-lined wooden housing shielded patients and technicians from the harmful effects of radiation.

These safety measures represented a big improvement from previous techniques: Emil Gruebé, a pioneer of radiology in the Chicago area, initially gauged the success of an X-ray by how severely it burned his hands and the body of his patient. He had a change of heart later in his career, and dedicated himself to making X-rays safer.

The Villard osmosis-regulator tube for use in X-rays was manufactured between 1898 and 1905 by the Emil Gundelach Co. of Germany.

The museum features a vintage apothecary shop, complete with remedies of yesteryear such as Lydia E. Pinkham’s patent medicines. Their massive success made their inventor and namesake into a minor celebrity.

Though born into a wealthy and politically prominent Massachusetts family, Pinkham was struggling financially in the 1870s. Pinkham and her husband sought to escape their dire straits by marketing potions that she had supposedly developed and used herself. Blending colorfully named ingredients like unicorn root and black cohosh with a hefty helping of alcohol, the concoctions promised to alleviate “female complaints.” They enjoyed widespread popularity during the late 19th century and remained common well into the 20th, after a few modifications spurred by the FDA.

Pinkham’s fame continued over a hundred years after her tonic’s debut. “Lily the Pink,” a risqué folk song inspired by Pinkham and recorded with backing vocals from Elton John, reached No. 1 in the British charts in 1968. Homeopathic cures bearing the Pinkham name, and claiming to follow at least some of the original recipe, are still sold today.